Chap. XXIX. COLONEL ORD ON SETTLEMENTS. 607 



make capital Missionaries; and it is only a bare act of justice 

 to say that their labours and success on the West Coast are 

 above all praise. And not on that shore alone does their 

 benevolence shine. In India, China, South Seas, Syria, 

 South Africa, and their own far West, they have proved 

 themselves worthy children of the old country — the asylum 

 for the oppressed of every nation — the source of light for all 

 lands. 



Now that we have given but a faint outline of what has 

 been done on the West Coast, we ask with what face can the 

 Portuguese shut some 900 miles of the East Coast from these 

 civilizing and humanizing influences. Looking at the lawful 

 trade which has been developed in one section of Africa, is 

 it to be endured by the rest of the world that most of a 

 continent so rich and fertile should be doomed to worse than 

 sterility till the Spaniards and Portuguese learn to abandon 

 their murderous traffic in man? When these effete nations 

 speak of their famous ancestors they tacitly admit that the 

 same sort of mental stagnation has fallen on themselves as 

 on the Africans and others ; the United States would confer 

 a blessing on Spain and tear away much of the veil that 

 blinds her, by annexing Cuba ; and England would perform 

 a noble service to Portugal by ignoring those pretences to 

 dominion on the East Coast, by which, for the sake of mere 

 swagger in Europe, she secures for herself the worst name in 

 Christendom. As we have mentioned, the more enlightened 

 Lisbon statesmen would fain effect by an English mercantile 

 company what has been accomplished elsewhere by English 

 philanthropy, protected by English cruisers. Here, on the 

 East Coast, not a single native has been taught to read, not 

 one branch of trade has been developed, and wherever Portu- 

 guese power, or rather intrigue, extends, we have that traffic 

 in full force which may be said to reverse every law of Christ, 

 and to defy the vengeance of Heaven. 



All the efforts of England for its permanent suppression 



